COMMENT | With the 14th general election fast approaching, the prime minister and Umno have become very friendly and caring towards the Indian community.

The latest being RM1.5 billion Amanah Saham 1Malaysia (AS1M) shares that are now open for sale to the Indian community. Indians from the community's B40 sector are also being offered a maximum of RM30,000 loan to purchase these shares.

The MIC and the Prime Minister's Department Socioeconomic Development of the Indian Community Unit (Sedic) are the salespeople for these shares.

I am wondering why hasn't Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) explained to these potential new shareholders what their business plans are for this RM1.5 billion investment. Are they investing in equity shares, bonds, real estate or starting own businesses?

It is basic investor relations to explain your short, medium and long-term business plans plus prospects. The new investors would also like to see the faces of the people running the show.

Besides this, can PNB also appoint senior executives from the Indian community to help realise these investment decisions? Employment opportunities that will expose them to critical and high-level investment decisions.

This is another critical need of the Indian community. Why didn’t the MIC and Sedic request for these opportunities that the community is in dire need of?

Umno slowly and steadily narrowed such opportunities for the Indians but now wants to offer the AS1M shares. This is not enough. We need jobs, too.

It is also being publicised that major banks offer loans and that the projected AS1M dividend itself can pay off these loans. That’s the main selling tool for MIC and Sedic.

But the question is loan instalments are monthly while dividends or returns are yearly. So how will the annual dividends pay for the monthly repayments? Indians cannot afford another fiasco worth RM1.5 billion.

More assurances

The Indians' income is low and they are very vulnerable to economic conditions. They need more assurances and clarity before they commit on these AS1M loans.

B40 Indians who take loans to invest in AS1M should not be penalised should they default or are unable to continue with their monthly loan repayments.

The Indian community still remembers the MIC fiasco of Maika Holdings in the 1980s, which saw many take loans to contribute to the RM100 million capital.

The MIC leader who robbed the Indian community was given a “Tun” title and is still retained by the government despite all his chicanery. Vanto Academy has been closed for the past three years.

No news about the TAFE college. The AIMST university formed with community and government funds with land provided by the Kedah government has been hijacked.

Truly, the Indian community has had enough of bad investment experiences with the MIC.

All this was possible because the BN model of governance outsources non-Malay affairs to the respective race-based component parties of BN. Umno-BN's modus operandi is to outsource the non-Malay community issues and problems to the respective BN component parties to manage.

The Indian community was therefore by design left out of the business, education and even sports sectors. Today the community is beleaguered with gangsterism, single mothers, early school drop-out rate, low self-esteem and economically handicapped.

Under the Umno-BN regime, only three percent of B40 Indians own residences compared to the Malays (seven percent) and Chinese (12 percent). Unemployment in the 15-19 years age group is 30.2 percent for the Indians, Malays (18.3 percent) and Chinese (14.5 percent).

In 2015, over 50 percent of Indians were employed in low-income jobs.

The average unemployment rate in 2016 was 4.9 percent for Indians, 3.8 percent for Malays and 2.7 percent for Chinese.

The Indians are the worst affected according to all economic barometers under the Umno-BN rule, and yet the MIC is all praise and adoration for them.

The figures above are from the Malaysian Indian blueprint. MIC the Umno cheerleaders don’t seem to see beyond Umno.

What the Indian community needs is dignity, pride and self-confidence to face the economic, technological and political discrimination of the BN government.

No amount of handouts, shares and allocations can uplift them in the face of racial and religious discrimination of this BN government.

Let’s look at the overall governance and financial management of the Indian community, and not confine this to the small circle of the MIC.

S RAMAKRISHNAN is a former senator.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.